The Maze
by Sunder the Gold
Summary: You've seen the doujin featuring how the three Aces handle a maze. Fate obediently finds her way through, Hayate cheats by walking around from the outside, and Nanoha simply blasts her way straight through the walls. But how do the others deal with it?


You've seen the doujin featuring how the three Aces handle a maze. Fate obediently finds her way through, Hayate cheats by walking around to the exit from the outside, and Nanoha simply blasts her way straight through the walls.

Well, imagine that the TSAB requires its mages to test themselves against a life-sized maze, equipped with traps and practice drones. Of course, flying over the walls is strictly forbidden.

Fate and Nanoha perform pretty much the same, though Hayate, forbidden from going around the maze, simply flattens the entire thing with her godlike firepower.

But how do our other heroes handle such a situation?

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 1: Chrono, the Methodical Ace<strong>

"What a pain," Chrono groaned.

"Don't be like that, Chrono," Amy cheered. "Show these girls how it's done!" Nanoha, Hayate and Fate all called their own words of encouragement from the observation deck (the ferret-boy was also in attendance, but didn't seem to feel the need to say anything), but he didn't hear the same confidence in their tones as Amy's.

It was only natural. Nanoha and Hayate were clearly wondering how well an ace would fare without their own levels of ridiculous power. They couldn't really help feeling some level of unconscious condescension for those who couldn't simply barrel through opposition with overwhelming firepower. Nevertheless, the two of them were watching attentively, looking to see what they could learn. (In Nanoha's case, what she might need to teach future students.)

Fate and Yuuno already had an idea of what to expect, as they had both trained personally with him in the months following the Jewel Seed incident and before the Book of Darkness incident. Yet they were also paying attention.

Fine then. Time for a lesson.

The obstacle course had been repaired and restocked with drones. Of course, the maze's configuration was nothing like the ones he had run in his training or previous tests. The drones were also reconfigured in a few ways, so he couldn't count on them having the exact same tricks as before.

When he took his place at the entrance to the maze, he held his personal Storage Device, S2U, on-line and ready.

Nanoha and Hayate noted with interest that Durandal, which they knew he had on him, was tucked away in standby mode. Chrono could have used that powerful Device to simply cast Eternal Coffin, freezing the entire maze and the drones within it, neutralizing all or at least most threats with one shot; two at most. They knew that he knew this. Clearly then, this was a self-imposed challenge... and possibly even a deliberate statement against their own tactics.

Hayate pouted cutely, and Nanoha blushed a little, giving her nervous "Nyahaha" laugh.

Chrono immediately set to work. Voicelessly, S2U's display flashed as it began working on the spells he assigned to it, while he conducted a basic scanning spell to see as far into the maze as its inherent physical and magical interferences allowed.

The range was not enough to let him know which path to take; he didn't expect it to. He quickly chose a direction at random, or maybe on a whim, with two important truths in mind.

The first: One of the greatest skills an officer could possess was the ability to make a snap decision; in a battle where hesitation could cost far more lives than an adequate decision, any course of action was better than none.

The second: Any maze could be successfully navigated by choosing to follow only left-hand or right-hand turns, and sticking with that direction without deviation. That didn't always mean that you would take the fastest course, but it DID mean that you would never get lost and double-back. (At least so long as the terrain didn't change. But Chrono had ways to deal with that as well.)

Scan completed, Chrono's eyes snapped open and he started creeping down the left corridor, already working his next trick even as S2U notified him that it was ready with the first spell and working on the second.

When he reached the first corner, he put his back against the wall. Then he rushed forward.

The drone waiting for him there didn't react for a moment, caught by surprise. Chrono had moved silently and hidden his magical signal, so it had not known he was coming.

He took advantage of its hesitation to strike the ground with the butt of S2U's haft, then darted back the way he came, using the wall as cover as the drone finally began opening fire.

The first spell released, S2U's display confirmed the completion of its second assignment.

Seeing its target escape out of line-of-fire, the drone darted forward... and flew right into Chrono's trap, a magical circle springing to life in the place he had struck, issuing a Struggle Bind that caught the machine fast in place. It couldn't even complete the turn it had started, so its weapons fired uselessly into another wall rather than the mage.

The mage who was already releasing a Stinger Shot, spearing the drone center-mass.

It fell over, smoking and inoperable. Amy was probably giving a little cheer now, but communications were cut off as soon as one entered the obstacle course. Didn't want on-lookers skewing the results by offering warnings or advice from a third-person perspective, after all.

But Amy and the peanut gallery were indeed giving a collective little cheer. Hayate fought down an undercurrent of envy, that Chrono could not only manage such economical spells so quickly, but that he could pace himself and his Device to work on so many at the very same time.

Even Yuuno admitted out loud that he wasn't that good at multi-tasking spells and tactics. Amy beamed in pride, but then mock-sternly reminded Yuuno that he currently didn't have a Device, either.

That was only the beginning of the test, but it set the pace for the rest. Chrono never hesitated for longer than the second it took to choose a course of action, but he never hurried. Each burst of speed was deliberate, and often interspersed with periods of stillness as he scanned the path ahead or waited for a drone to pass unwittingly by or stumble into another trap.

Sometimes he had to give up ground and time to strategic retreats, intended to lure his obstacles into more favorable quarters (or more traps). More rarely, he was caught by surprise by things that didn't show up on his scans, but he never panicked. He fell back, reassessed the situation, and chose a new course.

Even long after his time had grown past Hayate and Nanoha's comical lows, his audience was on the edge of their seats. Chrono's performance was sensational in a way entirely different from theirs; not a display of awesome speed or might, but a thrilling cat-and-mouse game. Even Yuuno found himself rooting enthusiastically for his antagonist.

When Chrono finally finished, his time was actually longer than Fate's. But he was not winded, had not once used a single Cartridge (whereas Fate had used four), and had only once used Durandal (and then, it was to freeze an entire wide-open room of drones, which he imagined had been included specifically to force him to decide whether or not he should stick to his pride or give in to simple pragmatism; he suspected his mother's hand in that).

He emerged, with a satisified smile, to much cheering and applause.


End file.
